City of Ghosts
by LadyStVire
Summary: Marcel Gerard is King again. King of the Quarter, King of New Orleans, King of a Tomb. A graveyard filled with the memories of people he once loved and who once loved him. Their ghosts hang everywhere, thick and heavy as Spanish moss. A brief character study of Marcel and his various relationships. Rebel/Marcille/Klamille/Haylijah A little bit of everything. One-shot


A/N: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS I go through many of the deaths that happen in all three seasons. Please if you have not watched, go do that first, and then come back and read this. I wrote this to help me come to terms with many of the deaths in this show and one death in season three, in particular. I hope it helps you too. If I forgot any "ghosts" please let me know and I will fix it. ~ LSV

Also I do not own any of the characters in this. They all belong to The CW and Julie Plec.

City of Ghosts

 _The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time in New Orleans. ~Bob Dylan_

Marcel Gerard is King again. King of the Quarter, King of New Orleans, King of a Tomb. A graveyard filled with the memories of people he once loved and who once loved him. Their ghosts hang everywhere, thick and heavy as Spanish moss.

There are several in the compound, they invade his home, his castle, linger as though he never drove them out. They remain undefeated.

Elijah's phantom still holds dominion in the library, whether the sardonic ass is lounging in a wingback chair, or standing at a window, gazing longingly across the courtyard, dry and derisive he gives advice without being asked.

 _A King would know better. A King would never be afraid. A King would always be in control._

His words are echoes of long ago lessons, dredged up from Marcel's memory to taunt and undermine. Marcel still burns with rage and grief at the arrogant ghost for his cruelty and stupidity.

 **This King drove you out, this King out thought you, this King laid you low.**

Yet there are times when Marcel finds himself sitting in the library with a bottle of bourbon, in the early hours of the morning, pretending not to listen.

 _Do not show indecision to the Stryx. But take care. You were raised by man who's own anger and impulsiveness were, more often than not, to his own detriment. Be cautious Marcel, do not let your sire show._

After all, even a King sometimes needs an advisor.

Above them the loud thumps and banging confirm the presence of another one of the compounds ghosts. The other worldly Freya prowls her lair, paging through books, muttering to herself, stomping back and forth. Every time he catches a glimpse of her, and their eyes meet, a chill runs up the back of his neck, because he knows that where ever she is at that moment she is working feverishly to reverse his good work.

Sometimes he wonders if it's really her, astral projecting, looking for some cure in her old casting ground, Vincent assures him that there is nothing for her to find there, that he has taken everything she left and cloaked it. She will not return until she can return in the flesh and he finds her continued frustration oddly reassuring.

Across the courtyard, Hailey stands in the nursery window rocking her baby, singing an old bayou lullaby, something dark and beautiful and laced with moonshine. She watches him standing in the doorway, her eyes narrow and fill with the promise of retribution and gratitude. He has freed her as surely as he freed himself, given her back her daughter and rid her of the constraints of the Mikaelson's. Yet she still loves them, as he once did, still clings to her captors, perhaps by the time Freya has found a way to save them, Hailey will have realized the gift he gave her. Perhaps one day the gratitude in her eyes will eclipse the anger. He hopes it is in time to save both their futures.

Hope appears occasionally, as other than a babe in arms, as the years pass her little memory grows taller and runs giggling through the courtyard splashing in puddles of rain, or down the hall, strewing flower petals behind her, sometimes he can see her playing on the balcony across the street, always before she vanishes she turns and meets his gaze, ancient powerful eyes set in the face of a porcelain doll, his partial sister, both creatures unintended by nature, she alone could unmake him, and he dreads the time when she will return for their father.

But by far the worst of the ghosts in the compound is his blond-haired Rebekah, she comes when he is asleep and defenseless.

 _No matter how big your kingdom grows, it is worth nothing if you are alone._

She croons as she crawls into his bed, slithering into his dreams. She whispers false promises and spits his own lies back into his mouth.

 _I would never hurt you._

He hates her and mourns her. He craves her and reviles her. She's so close he can feel her under his skin, where she has always been. Where he can't scrape her out. And when he finally surrenders and pulls her memory close to him, breathing in her scent, wallowing in his own defeat, his own cursed need for her. She laughs and vanishes, leaving him again and again, to wake with his fists clenched, his body burning and, his eyes wet. She leaves him, as she always has, after he finally admits he needs her.

That is why every time she comes back to him, he fights harder and harder to despise her. He curses her and rages at her. Tries to force her back into the grave he dug for her. But she is a Mikaelson and her cunning knows no bounds. And even a King eventually tires of battle.

These are the times when he flees the compound, stealing out into his beloved city. Hands in his pockets, head hung low, a King banished from his own home by the echoes of the dead.

But even his familiar streets hold memories, even here the ghosts wait for him.

Thierry leans against a lamp post outside his witch's shop, a cigarette dangling from his lower lip, he laughs at something Marcel cannot hear, and then turns wry pity-filled eyes on his old friend.

Aiden lingers on the street outside Josh's apartment. An honorable man, who valued young lives as much as Marcel did, but even he could escape the jaws of the Mikaelson's. Now the handsome ghost pointedly ignores his often comrade-in-arms as Marcel passes by. Instead, Aiden's eyes are fixed on the windows above him, Romeo's phantom watching over his beloved.

Gia, pretty Gia, whom he willfully threw in the path of the Mikaelson's, stands in Jackson Square playing her violin so heartbreakingly that ghosts, unknown to him, cross the boundaries of time to sit and listen to her. A tear slips down her cheek when she meets his gaze, he cannot bear to stop and listen to her so heavy is his own guilt.

At first, he walks nervously, he expects to find Cami around every corner, walking down the street where they first met, his would be queen, had time been kinder to them both. The gutsy girl with an easy smile and a brave heart. Loving her had been so easy, so different from what he and Rebekah had, so clean, so innocent, so fun. If the Mikaelson's had never come back, he could have been happy loving her, and she would have survived his love.

But no matter how many streets he walks down, no matter how many corners he turns, she doesn't appear. So, as he often did when she was alive, he begins to seek her out. Begins to look for her ghost, to apologize, to see her smile, to know that she is happy, safe and free.

Her apartment is cold and empty, the dusty wreak of her final fatal fight. Abandoned and cold, an empty shrine to her bravery and foolishness. She wouldn't linger here. She would seek friends and joy.

He wanders to Rousseau's, expecting to find her amid the laughter and jazz, waiting for him with a beer and a smile, but only Sophie-Anne's pale ghost waits behind the bar, angry, and bitter, warning him off with a shake of her head.

 _Don't come here, you are not welcome, King of the Quarter._

Cami isn't there, she would want to be with her family, her twin. And Marcel cringes at the thought.

St. Anne's is ominous in the heavy evening light, he has avoided this place, afraid to face the little spirit, who's shadow he can see, even now, silhouetted against the stained-glass window, painting in her attic room, safe and untouchable, whole and powerful. Sweet Davina, his daughter, he should have come sooner.

Father Kieran sits in a forgotten battered pew, shoved into a corner, his hands clasped as if in prayer but his empty haunted eyes are focused on the dusty fighting equipment that fills the hollow center of the room.

 _This was meant to be a place for peace, a place of solace and redemption. Why would you make this a place of war?_

He shakes his head sadly.

 _My family gave everything to your war, that least you could do was preserve our memory._

Then he is distracted by the little wordless tune drifting down from above. Davina's spirit smiles and runs to him when he enters her room. A weightless phantom in his arms, her tears are torture, she cannot hear his apology, and he cannot hear her forgiveness. He loses three nights sitting in her dusty room, watching her sparkling memory paint and sleep and conjure. It is the ghost of Coal that finally drives him away.

A dark looming repulsive presence in the door way, a torn and shattered ghost, ripped apart by more deaths than any soul should endure. And yet, she greets it with such joy and passion that Marcel cannot bear to watch as it enfolds her. Turning her shining light to shadow, even has she draws him closer.

As he leaves Davina's room, sickened and grieved, Marcel catches sight of Sean's angry blood soaked ghost pacing back and forth in front of the shattered alter, all traces of the kind and gentle youth erased by the horror of his death. Cami should be here, with her family, and yet Marcel is grateful that she isn't. She would not linger in this place of regret and sorrow, she would find a place of sunshine and beauty.

In the cemetery, he finds Vincent teaching young witches a new magic, based in balance and nature, not bound to the whims of those long dead, but to the caster's own moral code, less powerful, but with greater freedom.

He greets Marcel with a smile on his face and defiance in his eyes. He has not seen Cami either, he says she's crossed over, at peace, in heaven. Swears that she is at rest. Marcel wonders if he believes his own lies.

Because the truth is, he's always known where she is, she is with Him, the original bastard. She is the angel on the devil's shoulder. She waits in the dark with him, shares his agony and despair. Breathes courage into him. Marcel can hear her in the vents of the compound, drifting up from the earth, echoing from his father's grave, pleading and imploring him to stop the cycle of abuse and cruelty, to not become the thing that took her life.

She gives hope to the devil, until Hope comes to set him free.

In his weakest moments, Marcel begs her, as he never did in life, to leave Klaus, to leave the monster to his punishment. To abandon the dark to its suffering demons and to come back into the sunshine where she belongs. But that was never who she was, she walked down dark alleys and climbed down into graves. She absolved the undeserving and comforted the devil.

She was braver than was good for her, and in the end paid dearly for it. She deserved better.


End file.
